DEBUSSY La Mer (The Sea)
Few works so richly and evocatively portray the sea as Debussy’s trois esquisses symphoniques (“three symphonic sketches”). Oddly enough, though, the music was not written anywhere near the sea, but rather in various inland locations, including the Burgundian mountains and Paris. In La Mer, Debussy portrays the sea in its various moods, but does not attempt explicit images in sound; rather, through sonorities he seeks to stir the memories, emotions and imagination, permitting each listener a personal perception of the sea. The first performance took place on 15 October 1905 at the Concerts Lamoureux in Paris, Camille Chevillard conducting.
CLAUDE DEBUSSY (1862–1918)
La Mer (1903)
I. De l'aube à midi sur la mer (From Dawn to Noon on the Sea) 0:00
II. Jeux des vagues (Play of the Waves) 9:30
III. Dialogue du vent et de la mer (Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea) 16:30
Applause 24:58
The first part, From Dawn to Noon on the Sea, begins very quietly, with slow, mysterious murmuring. Through sonority itself, Debussy evokes the sensation of peering into the very depths of the dark, mysterious sea. As the sea awakens, the orchestral colours brighten and motion quickens. The music swings into a rocking 6/8 meter, and we hear a leisurely call from the muted horns. A mosaic of melodic fragments fills the music in constantly changing sonorities. One of these is heard in the divisi cellos, and is developed into an impressive climax. After subsiding, a new melodic idea, a noble chorale-like passage, appears and slowly grows to paint a majestic picture of the sea under the blazing noonday sun.
Play of the Waves is full of sparkle and animation. Like the first sea picture, melodic fragments are developed in an ever-changing mosaic of orchestral hues. The range and delicacy of Debussy’s scoring fascinate at every turn – even the “ping” of the triangle has evocative power. Debussy’s biographer Oscar Thompson describes this music as “a world of sheer fantasy, of strange visions and eerie voices, a mirage of sight and equally a mirage of sound. On the sea’s vast stage is presented trance-like phantasmagoria so evanescent and fugitive that it leaves behind only the vagueness of a dream.”
The final seascape, Dialogue of the Wind and the Sea, opens restless, grey and stormy, the music suggesting the mighty surging and swelling of the water. Melodic fragments from the first movement return. The activity subsides, and out of the mists comes a haunting, distant call, like that of the sirens, perhaps, high in the woodwinds. The music again gathers energy. Finally, we hear once more the grandiose chorale motif from the first sea picture, and La Mer ends in a great spray of sea water surging through the orchestra in spectacular colours. (Robert Markow)
Singapore Symphony Orchestra
Hans Graf, Music Director
Recorded live at the Esplanade Concert Hall, Singapore on 14 April 2023.
Audio and video: msm-productions (Singapore)
Join us as a YouTube channel member today to watch the full concert
/ @singaporesymphony